Exhibits
Artists as Art: Photographic Portraits

Piedmont Arts

Robert Frank photographs Beat poet Allen Ginsberg hugging a tree, Imogen Cunningham poses Alfred Stieglitz standing in front of a flower painting by Georgia O’Keeffe, and Barbara Morgan captures modern dancer Martha Graham as she stretches her body into a dramatic form; these images convey more than a mere likeness of the artists portrayed. Instead they highlight the collaboration between photographer and subject when both are artists seeking to convey a unique persona.

This exhibition features photographic portraits of fine artists, writers, and performers taken throughout the 20th century. From the softly focused, romantic images the Pictorialists made in the early 1900s to the casual color polaroids Andy Warhol took of the celebrities around him in the early 1970s, these works also trace the evolving styles and functions of photography as it documented artistic movements and increasingly served as a primary artistic medium in itself. Artists as Art is curated by Dr. Sarah Eckhardt, Assistant Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art.

Artists as Art: Photographic Portraits is on loan from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.